The research is concerned with memory for and comprehension of meaningful narratives. The general approach involves exposing the children to a story or set of stories and subsequently testing their memory and comprehension through (a) demanding recall or recognition of the essential features of the story; (b) asking a series of specific probe questions which tap verbatim recall and inferential reasoning; or (c) requiring physical reconstruction involving objects (e.g., puppets) or sequences of pictures depicting major events of the story. The influence of the child's specific knowledge of the world and general cognitive status on delayed recall and reconstruction of previous events will be examined. BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES: Brown, A. L., and Smiley, S. S. Rating the importance of structural units of prose passages: A problem of metacognitive development. Child Development, 1977, 48, 1-8. Brown, A. L. Development, schooling and the acquisition of knowledge about knowledge. In R. C. Anderson, R. J. Spiro, and W. E. Montague (Eds.), Schooling and the acquisition of knowledge. Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1977, in press.